“You can win, we are uniting and facing all these attacks”

Workers facing persecutory layoffs and suspensions in two important companies that operate in Argentina, a refinery of Shell and a food company with national capital like GeorGauls, were interviewed by the journalist Alexander Bercovich in the program Things Happened, by Radio Con Vos.

Gustavo Mitell (47 years old), worked at the refinery for 17 years Shell de Dock Sud and was reinstated by a court ruling after a major fight for his reinstatement. Likewise, Miguel Maciel (54 years old) worked for 18 years in the Georgalos factory in North Zone and was also fired, but reinstated by a recent court ruling.

Both are workers who stand up, who organize, who fight and show that You can twist the arm of the bossesdespite the inaction of the union bureaucracies. They raised the importance of organization from below, as in the Garrahanfor fight against labor reform. They called all the workers to the meeting this Saturday the 6th in Suteba Tigreto establish a Workers’ Coordination Board.

These were some of his main statements:

• I am Miguel Maciel, one of the five dismissed on June 5, three of whom are reinstated in the first instance. We have been fighting on the legal side together with our fellow CEPRODH lawyers. Last week there were about 80 workers suspended, among whom we are also included, who until now have not been reliably notified by the company or anything. Simply on Tuesday when we wanted to enter, they prevented us from entering saying that we were suspended, while we had union privileges.

• This week there were another 85 more workers suspended, and so on week after week. From what the company says and the agreement it is having with the STIA, over the course of these 3 months they want to have the workers suspended for 15 days and hit them with vacations to reduce costs and so that their profitability is on the backs of the workers, because they save 40%.

• (Gustavo): “Shell is in the middle of a sale, but well, it has no crisis, there is no crisis in the middle. What’s more, he was friends with Milei when he gave the car to one of the CEOs. The layoffs are part of the fact that they want to apply a labor reform of the facts. Already at the beginning of the year they fired 10 colleagues, of which we were part of those who demanded better working conditions. We were discussing the issue of health because the refinery is very polluting, There are products that are carcinogenic that not only attack the health of the workers, but also the health of the neighbors. There is Villa Inflamable next door and we have the sad record that there are children who have lead in their blood. So, our fight is not only for jobs and for better working conditions, but for everyone’s health.”

• On Thursday, we held a solidarity event for our layoffs where colleagues from Morbillo (graphic printing company) came and fired them through a WhatsApp message. There are 300 families that continue fighting for the factory to reopen. And so came several sectors that continue to be attacked by Milei’s chainsaw, who see that there is no future for what we are working on. That is why we are uniting and facing all these attacks. A clear example that they can be beaten was Garrahan.

• Currently fighting it, we have two reinstatement failures in Shell that the company is not complying with, illegally it is not complying with, and that is why we continue fighting.

• On the other side there is no prospect of exit either because for example, yesterday Massa was with the CGT and he asked them, sit down and make a reform. So, the same people who should defend you are not doing so.